Wide tires on a Polaris Ranger EV

We’ve been noticing that the Ranger has been pretty tough on our trails here at Prairie Haven. Our pet theory is that the EV (plug in electric) version of the Ranger is quite a bit heavier than a normal one and that the standard (narrow, aggressive-tread) tires add to the problem.

The Mission: wider tires for the Ranger EV

We’ve just mounted four Carlysle 25x11x12 Multi-Trac (574369) turf tires . These are a little wider than the standard tires and have a much less aggressive tread pattern. Here’s Marcie on her test drive — early returns are positive.

You can see that the footprint is much wider than the standard tires if you click on the picture and look at where the tires are dirty from Marcie’s 200 yard test drive. I think these may be a little over-inflated as well. Taking them down to about 7 psi may improve this even more.

The Tricky Bit: front fitment

The back tires are just mounted on the standard rims. They’re a little too wide for the rims so we added inner tubes (we’d already done that to the stock tires, so those just moved over to the new ones).

The front tires are also mounted on the stock rims, but they need spacers to clear the suspension. You can track down the 2-inch spacers we used by including “WP024” in your search for 2-inch spacers for a Ranger ATV/UTV. Four of them (we only used two) will cost about $100 on Amazon/eBay. Here’s what they look like on our Ranger.

Pro tip – my half-inch-drive sockets were too big to drive the spacer’s lug nuts: The lug nuts that come with the spacer need an 11/16 or 17mm deep socket and they reside at the bottom of deep wells in the spacer (take a look at the first photo — the empty holes are the wells I’m talking about – there are lug nuts at the bottom). 1/2-inch drive sockets are too big/thick to insert into those deep wells. I bought a 3/8th-drive, 11/16ths, deep socket at the hardware store that fit fine. Take the spacer along on the shopping trip — all this will make more sense once the spacer (and the lug nuts that come with it) are in your hands.

Here’s how it looks with the tire mounted…

The key clearance is between the tire and the front suspension. Mounting them without spacers doesn’t quite clear. Here’s a picture showing the clearance now that they’re mounted with the spacer.

And here’s a picture that shows that the wide tires still clear the fender at full lock — by about an inch. Cozy, but not a problem for our laid-back use of the Ranger. I wouldn’t want to race on this rig.